Month: October 2008
Obama’s Tony Robbins Connection
After listening to the hundreds of hours the media have forced onto the airwaves of Barack Obama blowing hot air and smoke, I’ve noticed a familiar cadence in his speech and manner. In fact, as I listened more and more and noticed the nuances and mannerisms, even terminology, I searched my memory for the connection. He sounds like someone. He sounds like one of those self-help lecturers. After a lot of struggle and even some doubt as to whether I was imagining it, I finally placed the fence-sitter’s choice award winning performance. His voice, his movements, his tone, …his whole persona is a carefully crafted and rehearsed impression of Tony Robbins.
As the realization sunk in, another realization hit me; no wonder his empty rhetoric and out-of-nowhere-but-crooked-Chicago-politics origin have not hindered his rise to populist popularity. No wonder the common folk (some say simple minded) fall so easily for his hypnotic ambiguity. HE’S A MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKER! Not an inspirational speaker, not an truth speaker, not even an empathetic speaker. This difference between B.O. and Robbins is that motivational speaker B.O. keeps all of his talking points in the ethereal realm of “hope” and “change” and, as much as possible, avoids the facts of reality.
It’s only been in recent weeks, since McCain’s started using his teeth, that Obama’s begun to abandon the happy-because-I-decide-to-be cirrus world of the golden and happy-tongued.
Though I can’t definitively verify the connection between Obama and Robbins, a cursory search returned ample references to that connection, several claiming certain knowledge that Barry was trained by Robbins. (If you know any different or can confirm, feel free to comment.)
For the record, I understand from soaking up public sentiment over my life that Tony Robbins has made millions of dollars helping a great many people for exactly as long as those people stay in the bubble and procedure of belief in his system. Though I don’t know much about his programs and have never seen him speak, I know the self-help lecturer type and I know the effects of those programs. When there’s substance, it’s a good thing. When substance and sound policy is absent, it’s mass hypnosis.
There’s nothing wrong with people seeking to improve themselves and seeking advice on that pursuit from those who they believe have experienced success. The problem I have is when a extremist politician stands in front of the country and builds a presidential campaign on a tick-perfect impression of a filthy-rich famous (and very liberal) motivational speaker. Barack Obama shouldn’t want the presidency on mirroring someone else’s performance without the substance. He may have the performance down, but by discerning his words we suspect that he’s still just the angry kid with a tumor of a chip on his shoulder that metastasized by the teachings of questionable parenting until supported and saved by stable grandparents, though one was a “racist”, so he says. An angry kid shaped by charity education and then radicals and corrupt politics afterward.
When I think of Obama, a quote from the most recent Bond movie, Casino Royale, keeps popping into my head, so I’ll let you decide if the shoe fits…
… by the cut of your suit, you went to Oxford or wherever. Naturally you think human beings dress like that. But you wear it with such disdain, my guess is you didn’t come from money, and your school friends never let you forget it. Which means that you were at that school by the grace of someone else’s charity: hence that chip on your shoulder.
Obama’s a stage performer, and one inch deep, not a change agent.
Those in Harm’s Way Vote McCain
Not much of an endorsement for Democrats claims to want to save American lives. Democrat common sense would hold that they’d vote for the candidate who wants to bring them home immediately, but in reality, not so much. Common sense to the conservative, and the boots on the ground, is that we’re doing what needs to be done, even though the cost is high.
Some highlights…
All Military Respondents
McCain 68%
Obama 23%
CNN Calls Out Obama On Lies about Ayers
According to CNN, “…the relationship between Obama and Ayers went much deeper, ran much longer, and was much more political than Obama said.”
1. Turns out they were close and worked very closely for 7+ years. Very interesting.
2. Instead of giving money directly to schools which was the cover of the efforts they were involved with, the money went to radical community organization groups and school experiments focused on United Nations studies and Black Studies.
3. A second foundation generated money for Jerimiah Wright’s church, among others evils.
Frankly I’m shocked to see Andersen Cooper doing fair news, but better late than never.
Clinton Promised Middle Class Tax Cuts Too…
Yet another piece in the Wall Street Journal worth a read…
Clinton’s campaign before his first term was full of promises similar to Obama’s rhetoric.
“Now, I’ll tell you this,” [Clinton] said. “I will not raise taxes on the middle class to pay for these programs. If the money does not come in there to pay for these programs, we will cut other government spending, or we will slow down the phase-in of the programs.”
Mr. Clinton, of course, won that election. And as the inauguration approached, he began backtracking from his promise. At a Jan. 14, 1993, press conference in New Hampshire, he claimed that it was the media that had played up a middle-class tax cut, not him. A month later, he announced his actual plan before a joint session of Congress.
On page one of the New York Times, the paper described the fate of the middle-class tax cut this way: “Families earning as little as $20,000 a year — members of the ‘forgotten middle class’ whose taxes he promised during his campaign to cut — will also be asked to send more dollars to Washington under the President’s plan.”
In some ways, we are today reliving the campaign of 1992. As in 1992, the Democrat is promising a middle-class tax cut. As in 1992, the Democrat is hammering the Republican as a tool of the rich…
and…
Barring divine intervention, a President Obama would not have a Republican Congress to worry about. Instead, he would be working with a Democratic speaker of the House who loaded billions in pork onto a bill meant to fund our troops; with a Democratic Senate majority leader who promised to change the way Congress spent but fought earmark reform; and with committee leaders such as Sen. Chris Dodd and Rep. Barney Frank, who did so much to bring us the financial implosion of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Post VP Debate: Biden’s Fantasy World
There’s a great piece in the Wall Stree Journal about the VP debate and Biden’s falsehoods.
Speaking of which, Mr. Biden also averred that “Our commanding general in Afghanistan said the surge principle in Iraq will not work in Afghanistan.” In trying to correct him, Mrs. Palin mispronounced the general’s name — saying “General McClellan” instead of General David McKiernan. But Mr. Biden’s claim was the bigger error, because General McKiernan said that while “Afghanistan is not Iraq,” he also said a “sustained commitment” to counterinsurgency would be required. That is consistent with Mr. McCain’s point that the “surge principles” of Iraq could work in Afghanistan.
and…
Then there’s the Senator’s astonishing claim that Mr. Obama “did not say he’d sit down with Ahmadinejad” without preconditions. Yet Mr. Biden himself criticized Mr. Obama on this point in 2007 at the National Press Club: “Would I make a blanket commitment to meet unconditionally with the leaders of each of those countries within the first year I was elected President? Absolutely, positively no.”
And…
Closer to home, the Delaware blarney stone also invited Americans to join him at “Katie’s restaurant” in Wilmington to witness middle-class struggles. Just one problem: Katie’s closed in the 1980s. The mistake is more than a memory lapse because it exposes how phony is Mr. Biden’s attempt to pose for this campaign as Lunchbucket Joe.
We think the word “lie” is overused in politics today, having become a favorite of the blogosphere and at the New York Times. So we won’t say Mr. Biden was deliberately making events up when he made these and other false statements. Perhaps he merely misspoke. In any case, Mrs. Palin may not know as much about the world as Mr. Biden does, but at least most of what she knows is true.
History on Video: Dems Defend Stupidity Fiercely
Watch and rate the video on YouTube to keep it in front of the fence-sitters who don’t know this information.
“I think the responsibility the Democrats have may rest more in resisting any efforts by republicans in congress or by me as president to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.” -Bill Clinton
Burning down the house – what caused the financial crisis
Watch and rate the video on YouTube to keep it in front of the fence-sitters who don’t know this information.